


A Tranquil in Starkhaven

by kmfillz



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Dragon Age Kink Meme, F/M, Rite of Tranquility
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-10-07 20:58:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10369290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kmfillz/pseuds/kmfillz
Summary: During Sebastian's attack on Kirkwall, Anders is captured and made Tranquil. Hawke sets out to rescue him.(Fill forthis kink meme prompt.)





	

The night the Chantry burned, the night of the Kirkwall Annulment, the night Meredith went mad and statues came to life was the night Hawke told Anders she didn't ever want to see him again.

Even then, it wasn't true. The truth was that even with Sebastian primed to explode a different kind of devastation down on her city, she couldn't slide a knife between the ribs of the man she loved. So she told him to go, and stopped herself from turning her head to watch him walk away. Without looking, she could see Anders in her mind's eye picking his way over the rough cobblestones, looking diminished, all the anger that he had been gathering inside him for a lifetime expended in one deadly explosion, leaving nothing left of him but rubble.

She'd done what she could to stop the madness. She couldn't stop Anders, but she could stop Meredith, once and for all. In the end she left, telling herself her friends were alive, Carver was alive, the mages had been spared, and that was all that mattered. She knew her act of mercy had once again imperilled her city, but she was powerless against an army. The best thing she could do was remove herself and all her known companions from the situation, hoping Sebastian's revenge would follow her and not his wild threat against Kirkwall. Kirkwall was never an innocent city, but in this matter it was blameless. She was to blame -- she and Anders.

Her ragged band wound their way eastward up the coast, and one by one her friends split off to lay false trails for Sebastian and any other pursuers that may come. At last there were only Hawke and Isabela left, getting drunk in a wayside inn halfway to Ostwick. Isabela was going off on her favourite topic, the ship Hawke should have let her purchase (by letting that slaver go? not on her life), when Hawke heard the name "Anders" spoken. She tuned out Isabela's rant to listen to the woman who had just come in.

"...And so they all marched off to Starkhaven, and good riddance, he told me. If Kirkwall can't keep its mages in check, all the better for Starkhaven to do the job."

The table around the woman erupted in cheers and arguments.

Hawke felt a hand on her knee under the table, and saw Isabela was paying attention now too.

"Don't get up. Just listen," she whispered urgently to Hawke.

Hawke glared down into her empty mug. The worst part about being on the run was not being able to go up to people and demand they explain themselves. What was going on in Kirkwall? Who had been taken to Starkhaven? She concentrated on the hubbub from the other table, trying to separate out individual voices.

"I heard he was a blood mage."

"Naw, just an apostate who fancied himself a revolutionary."

"Maybe a revolution's needed. I hear bad things about them Circles, they're not--"

"Shut your mouth, Jessa. You want your family to be eaten by demons? Because that's what happens when--"

"No, you shut your mouth, David! Jessa's right. My nephew was taken away to the Circle last winter, and he would _never_ give a demon the time of day. Now poor Edie and that man of hers don't have enough hands to care for the farm, and their next oldest is only nine years old. How is that justice? How's magic going to serve man if mages are locked away in some tower while their families go hungry? The Circle won't even send a blessed stipend--"

"Well, it's definitely not 'serving man' to blow up a Chantry! Is that what you want Edie's boy doing?"

"Renata's nephew isn't the point. The point is that we don't know what goes on in those Circles, and the only people you ever see go in or out are Templars and the creepy brands--"

"I'm not saying this is fact, but I've heard that the brands will do whatever Templars tell them to, and I do mean _whatever_." The man waggled his eyebrows and the hand on Hawke's knee tightened.

Isabela was right; this fight was not worth starting, not now, not here.

"As long as 'whatever' doesn't mean killing Chantry sisters, the world's a good deal safer with that Anders branded."

All the voices in the room were drowned out by the rushing in Hawke's ears as those two words reverberated through her mind.

_Anders. Branded._

There was no mistaking what they meant. Anders had been caught, and they had made him Tranquil. His worst nightmare. Hawke's worst nightmare -- any apostate's worst nightmare. 

And they were well within their rights to do so. Anders had consorted with a spirit -- a demon? she was no longer sure what to call Justice. That they had chosen to make him Tranquil instead of killing him was a sign of mercy, in theory.

But if Sebastian had been there... He knew. He knew that he had done the worst thing to Anders that he could do. He knew that he had left Anders vulnerable to the Templar's every command -- those waggled eyebrows came back to her -- yes, _every_ command.

Hawke stood up abruptly and left the common room.

Isabela caught up with her as she was packing their possessions.

"I know you want to leave -- I want to leave too -- but the caravan doesn't depart until morning."

Hawke barely registered her words, fastening the straps of her pack around her shoulders. Only when Isabela barred her way did she respond.

"The caravan is going in the wrong direction."

"You're going to Starkhaven!" Isabela's voice was furious, but she looked like she might cry. "Of all the hair-brained, suicidal things... Hawke, you _can't_."

"I can. You are welcome to join me or not."

"Sebastian will be looking for you, you idiot! You must remember Sebastian: our dreamy-eyed friend with Andraste for a codpiece?"

"Everyone is looking for us already."

"You heard what he did to Anders."

Hawke looked at her in silence. Yes, she'd heard. That's why she had to go.

"He can do that to you, too."

Hawke's stomach turned, and it made her angrier. "I can't leave him there."

"If you go there," Isabela said gravely, "You. Will. Die."

"It doesn't matter. Anders was my friend. I can't let him suffer like that."

"He _isn't_ suffering! He's a Tranquil, you tit."

An invisible wave of force slammed Isabela into the far wall of the room.

Hawke did not wait to see Isabela pick herself back up. As she walked out the door, she heard Isabela's voice, low and unreadable.

"If you ever need to find me, the bartender at the Playful Lion in Ostwick will know how."

* * *

The two weeks on the road to Starkhaven were two of the bleakest of Hawke's life. Even in the Deep Roads, she'd had friends by her side to keep her company. Now she had no one, and she was going to rescue someone who was already dead.

She encountered nothing more dangerous than an empty wallet, which she refilled from the pockets of the best dressed (and drunkest) patrons of the next inn. She might not have Isabela with her, but she had picked up enough of her skills so as not to be entirely dependent on her. The Champion of Kirkwall would have felt remorse from stealing from those who had so little, but she wasn't the Champion anymore. She was the broke refugee apostate who had spent a year indentured to smugglers. She had no time or room in her heart for pity, only for practicality. She had to get to Starkhaven.

Entering the city was easy. Find a cart, help unload. The guards are more interested in what's in the sacks than who's carrying them. With three honestly earned silver in her pocket from the carter, she meandered through town, trying to look shiftless rather than simply lost. It worked well enough that a butcher in the outer market paid her to run a letter to his partner's wife in the western quarter. (She peeked, but alas, the letter was nothing scandalous.)

His directions were clear enough that she didn't need to know the territory to follow them. Letter delivered, she slipped around back of the butcher's partner's wife's house to the kitchen, and flirted with the cook shamelessly until her flirting had won her three apples and a cup of beef stew. She could have ended up with a soft bed for the night as well, with a tumble thrown in for free, but she made the mistake of looking into the pretty cook's sincere brown eyes, and was overcome with sadness. Weeks of solitude, haunted by dreams of Anders with a sunburst between his brows, had worn her down.

The cook took sympathy on this crying stranger. She guided Hawke down onto a stool and gave her a dishrag to wipe her face on and a swig of gin to steady her.

"Here now, what's the matter?" she inquired in that brogue Hawke had once found so charming on Sebastian.

Hawke improvised. "It's my brother. He's only twelve, and the Templars came and took him away." (She made silent apologies to Carver.) "Mother and I moved to the city to be near him, but it's been weeks since we arrived, and he hasn't replied to a single letter."

"Oh, sweetheart." A strong arm wrapped around Hawke's shoulders. "It's always that way, you know. My neighbor's sister was a mage, and they didn't let her write until she'd become a full enchanter -- or whatever it is they're called when they aren't apprentices any more." Hawke let out a sob. "But she knew her sister was safe, see, because the Tranquil told her, and they don't lie." Hawke blinked tearily up at her. "You know, the people who sell enchantments outside the Circle, who speak oddly? ...No, I suppose you wouldn't, being from the countryside.

"KATE!" she hollered suddenly.

The scullery maid walked through the door drying her hands on her skirt.

"Kate, you take this girl to the enchantment vendor by the Circle's east gate. You know which one I mean; he sold us the cleansing rune for the new washtub."

Kate looked hesitant, gaze flickering back in the direction she'd come.

"Don't worry about the washing for tonight; I'll see to it that it gets done."

With a look of great relief, Kate gestured for Hawke to follow.

Hawke downed the last of the stew, slipped the remaining apples into her pocket, and followed.

* * *

Starkhaven's Circle was not an island fortress like the Gallows, praise Andraste, but was set off from the city that surrounded it by stone walls too tall and smooth to climb. She was so near to Anders now, but so far.

As they approached the east gate, Kate pointed her to a blue-painted merchant's stall, slapped her on the back, and was gone, no doubt intending to make the most of her unplanned evening off.

"Greetings," the Tranquil merchant said in an even voice. He was a middle aged man, and moved with the stiffness of someone who had done hard labour all his life, but his robes were clean and unpatched and the hands that gestured at his wares were uncalloused. "Would you like to purchase a rune?"

He looked at her serenely, without impatience, as she examined the runes on display.

She pointed to a rune as if to inquire, but the question she asked was "Have any mages joined your Circle recently?"

He looked neither surprised nor intrigued by her question or her mismatched body language. "Yes. One mage from the city last month, seventeen mages from Kirkwall eight days ago."

That was not quite the answer she was expecting. "Who are these mages from Kirkwall?"

"They were the surviving members of the Kirkwall Circle of Magi."

Seventeen surviving? What of all the mages she'd fought so hard to save from Meredith? Had Sebastian murdered all the others?

"'Were'?" She choked out.

"They are now members of the Starkhaven Circle of Magi."

Oh, she thought dully. Of course they were.

"You appear upset."

_Maker's balls, Hawke. He's Tranquil, not deaf and blind._ She needed to control herself before anyone else noticed the scene she was making.

"I am from Kirkwall," she forced herself to say, unintentionally mimicking his speech pattern. "I feel sad that more did not survive."

But one out of those seventeen mages was Anders, had to be Anders, and she was here on a mission.

"Are there any new Tranquil in Starkhaven?"

"Yes. In addition to the mages, one Tranquil arrived from Kirkwall eight days ago."

If Anders was Tranquil, he was no longer a mage, she realized. The thought was disturbing.

"Is there a way for me to see this Tranquil from Kirkwall?"

"He is paraded in irons around these walls every day at noon."

Her heart lept in her chest. Irons weren't needed to contain the Tranquil. Could Justice have protected Anders from true Tranquility?

As if reading her mind, the merchant added, "The irons are unnecessary, but they reassure the people who fear him."

She nodded shakily, bought a cheap cleansing rune in case anyone was watching, and left.

* * *

Taverns near the Circle were an unwise place for a wanted apostate like Hawke to go, so of course, that was where she went. But not inside, because contrary to what Isabela thought, she wasn't suicidal.

Scavenging a (perfectly good!) empty bottle from a garbage heap as a prop, she lay down in an alley next to the back door of a popular-looking tavern, pulled her hood down over her face, and pretended to sleep.

Several hours passed without hearing anything of interest, and Hawke drifted off in truth. Her dreams felt lonelier knowing that Anders could not share them.

She awoke to darkness and the smell of piss and garbage. Her mind lingered fretfully on whether she'd be able to wash the smell out of her coat and trousers, or if she would have to buy new clothing to avoid attracting attention tomorrow.

As the hour got later, the drunks got louder, and still no talk of Anders. Hawke decided she needed to take a risk. She tottered inside, ordered an ale, and swung her gaze around the tavern until it landed on a flaming sword insignia. The man wearing it was boasting loudly to his companion about his, shall we say, prowess. Good, a loudmouthed braggart was exactly what she needed.

She took a sip of her ale. It wasn't bad at all. Pity.

A minute later the entire tankard full was soaking the Templar's skirt, and Hawke was slurring apologies as she made to pat his crotch dry.

"Why don't you watch where you're going?" Ser Braggart sputtered, attempting to pry her off him. He met with limited success, managing only to propell her from his lap into his friend's.

"Hey, a Templar!" Hawke beamed with delight. She hoped any flaws in her accent would be attributed to drunkenness. "Di'n't you fellows catch a very dangerous mage? I saw him on parade."

The Templar was still fussing with his skirt, but the owner of the lap she was in gleefully announced that they surely had, and pinched her.

Two templars, then. One too stupid to change out of his uniform before going for drinks, the other too lecherous to care that the woman in his lap smelled like she'd rolled around in an alley, which she had. That was Templars for you -- idiots, the lot of them. Carver excepted. Maybe. 

Ser Lecher was happy to elaborate in what sounded like entirely fictional detail. Hawke cooed appropriately. "He looks so scary," she told Ser Lecher with wide eyes, and bit her lip.

Ser Braggart was done with being ignored. "Anders is harmless as a lamb," he cut in. "Docile and obedient in every way. I could order him to lick the bottom of your feet, and he would, happily."

An oddly specific mental image, that. But it was just the opening she needed.

"Could you?" she asked, breathily. She thrust her breasts out as far as she could, wishing she were dressed in something more revealing. Seduction wasn't her strongest suit, but she'd watched Isabela in action many times, and knew that cleavage was a key component.

"Oh yes," Ser Braggart said, with complete confidence.

_Bastard,_ she raged. What had he done to Anders already that made him so sure of this?

"Let us show you," Ser Lecher said into her ear, in a tone that might have been enticing if it weren't a little too loud.

"Are you... are you allowed?"

"Leave it to us, darling," Ser Braggart assured her, and they stood up.

She wondered if it was really going to be this easy.

* * *

On any other day, a pair of Templars escorting her into the Circle would be the stuff of nightmares.

On any other day, the Templar on her right wouldn't have tripped over her foot twice by accident on the walk here.

Ser Lecher, who still had his wits about him, such as they were, took the keys from Ser Braggart's fumbling grasp and opened the outer gate.

Ser Braggart thumped enthusiastically on the inner door. It opened on a helmeted Templar and a tired looking Circle mage.

"Who goes?" the Templar challenged them, before flipping up his visor and sighing. "Dennan, you're not supposed to be on Circle grounds without uniform." Ser Lecher shrugged with a rueful grin on his face. "And who's that with you?"

"Oh, you know..." Ser Braggart elbowed the Templar in the side, producing a dull clang of metal on metal. "This is a dangerous wanted apostate and we have to _interrogate_ her."

Her heart caught in her throat. If any of them had a clue how _accurate_ that statement was...

But the Templar guardsman only threw up his hands in disgust. "It's your neck, Rouwer. But if you get caught, it wasn't Melvi and I that let you in, you hear me?"

'Melvi' must be the Circle mage, who was at this moment pretending not to be in the room.

Rouwer laughed, and said, "Thanks, mate," and they proceeded into the Circle grounds.

* * *

Had Hawke not known better, the gardens and well kept buildings of the Starkhaven Circle might have looked idyllic. To her, it might as well have been the Black City. As they walked, she thought about how she would disable both Templars at once. Their reflexes were slowed, and hers were sharp. Two against one were odds she had faced before without hesitation. The problem this time was that any noise made ran the risk of summoning the entire Templar Order down on her neck. She needed to disable them instantly.

Her companions led her around the compound and down into a corridor that made no pretense of being anything but a prison. The dispelling glyphs felt cold beneath her feet, and thick doors on either side hid suffering Hawke could not imagine but that Anders once would have readily explained in detail, to anyone who would listen. The three interlopers descended into the level below, and stopped at the fourth door on the left. (How many mages was this prison meant to hold? All of them?)

Rouwer's key turned in the lock, and the door swung open.

Except for the Tranquil robes, there was no visible difference between the form lying on the floor and the rebel mage she'd last seen that night that now seemed a lifetime ago in Kirkwall. His hair was still tied back in its accustomed style, and Anders was still the same light sleeper, for there was only a moment before awoke.

He sat up, and in the torch light from the hall, she could see the sunburst brand on his face. She had known what it would look like, had been haunted by visions of it in her dreams these past weeks, but the sight of it nevertheless glued her in place.

Anders looked directly at her. There was no change in his expression, but he opened his mouth to speak, and she realized he would betray her secret to the Templars.

Her skin was saved by Dennan's timely command: "Be silent, Anders, and follow us."

Hawke tried not to look at the silent figure walking beside her as they ascended the stairs and ventured out into the courtyard. The Templars led them into what appeared to be a music room.

As soon as the door closed, Hawke struck.

Accuracy over a distance was difficult without a staff, but luckily Rouwer and Dennan were at no distance at all. She raised a hand to the back of each man's head, and they fell without a word, brain and melting icewater dripping out through the holes her spurs of ice had pierced in their skulls.

For a moment she felt remorseful, to see the men who been laughing beside her one moment lying still and dead, but she remembered how they had treated Anders as a plaything, and she remembered _seventeen mages and one Tranquil_ , and she leaned over to spit in their faces.

Next, she had to handle Anders. "Remain silent," she ordered.

"This is unwise." His voice was achingly familiar, but devoid of any of the passion or sarcasm that typified the man she knew.

So he would obey a Templar now, but not her? She was suddenly furious.

She grabbed this false shell of Anders by the shoulders and looked him straight in the eye.

"Anders, think. You disobeyed me once, and a Chantry exploded and two hundred mages were massacred. How about, _this time_ , you try obeying me?"

He was silent for a moment. "Very well."

She closed her eyes and breathed in. One victory at a time. She opened her eyes and pointed at Rouwer's corpse. "Put that uniform on."

Anders set about stripping the corpse, then removed his clothing and donned the uniform. It was slightly large, but it would pass a cursory inspection. He looked at her questioningly before adding the helmet that Rouwer had been carrying but not wearing.

"You must stay silent and pretend to be him as we leave, or more people will get hurt."

Anders strode over to her in Rouwer's armor, his gait changing to match that of the dead man. She had forgotten Anders could be a good mimic when he set his mind to it. She wondered now if that skill had helped him during his previous escapes. He draped his arm around her hips familiarly, and she almost jumped. Right, he was pretending to be Rouwer.

They walked to the gate; Anders seemed to know the way.

As they neared it, Hawke began to giggle and leaned into Anders. His gauntleted hand roamed up her side, squeezing her breast obscenely as Melvi and the Templar caught sight of them. She felt her body become aroused at his touch. The Templars' groping before had provoked nothing of the sort.

"Have a good time?" the guard asked jovially.

Anders said nothing, but he squeezed her to him and she squeeked, which was apparently answer enough for the guard.

"Wasn't Dennan with you before?" he inquired, as he and Melvi set about opening the door. Anders nodded and pointed his thumb over his shoulder back in the direction they had come. Hawke giggled conspiratorily.

The Templar raised his eyebrows in recognition of what he believed to be happening, and as they exited through the outer door, she breathed a sigh of relief that it would be at least another hour before the dead Templars were likely to be discovered.

* * *

She guided Anders toward the red light district, the only part of town she knew of where the odd pairing they made wouldn't draw any attention. They prowled up and down its main thoroughfare until Hawke located what she had been hoping to find.

Anders' size and build was not the most popular in the Starkhaven brothels this year, it seemed, but a suitable gentleman of ill repute was identified, his (exorbitant, in Hawke's opinion) group rate was paid, and it was only when they were ensconced in the man's room that she explained that it was not his body they wanted but the clothes upon it.

"You expect me to go back outside naked, messere?"

"Nug shit. You have a change of clothes somewhere." She held out another silver.

"But I don't."

"But you do," she insisted calmly, pouring more silvers into her palm. He hesitated at the sight, and she hoped fervently that it would be enough. Those were her last silvers.

"Why can't your Templar friend buy his clothes from a seamstress?"

_Because he's not a Templar, and we need to leave tonight,_ she didn't say.

Anders thankfully stepped in, with a voice so warm and suggestive that she almost believed that _her_ Anders had returned.

"It's not the same if they haven't been... _used._ "

The man nodded and grinned, suddenly very understanding. He took the coin and left his clothes, departing in a spare change of clothing he'd only just then remembered was there.

Anders changed into the clothing without needing to ask. The outfit the man had been wearing was not too attention-getting, fortunately -- though it was _awfully_ tight. Hawke tried not to stare, but to hear her lover's voice and see his body on display awakened all sorts of feelings within her.

After waiting an hour, they depart the room, leaving behind the Templar armor tucked into a drawer.

Hawke gave Anders her disgusting cloak to wear as they made their way toward the outer market. He pulled the hood down over his forehead, hiding the brand, and they passed without comment, just two travelers out in Starkhaven at night.

A few coppers got them a bunk to share at a hostel, and they spent the night in uncomfortable proximity. Uncomfortable for Hawke, that is. She was acutely aware that the position they'd settled into was the position they'd slept in together back when he was living with her in her mansion, back when he was her lover and not an empty husk incapable of love. _Anders_ actually seemed to sleep better than he had in all the time they were together, no longer wracked by dreams of darkspawn hordes.

In the morning they left the city the way she had entered, and set out on the road to Ostwick. Hawke wasn't sure what she was going to do with this Tranquil imitation of her friend now that she had him, but she was sure she didn't want to do it alone. They dodged other travelers, hiding in the bushes as necessary. Traveling with a caravan might have been faster, but they would have been remembered, and therefore traced.

Hawke was in a black mood, and Anders seemed disinclined to talk. She refused to even look at him, except to check now and then that he was still following her, so she was surprised when just before sunset Anders spoke.

"We must stop."

She turned around, ready to argue.

He pointed toward the bridge up ahead. "I must wash my feet in the brook before infection sets in," he said evenly.

She looked down, and only then remembered that Anders didn't have any shoes. His feet were filthy, and he lifted one to show her that the bottoms were caked with blood.

She sucked in her breath. "Isn't that painful?"

"Very," he said, without recrimination.

They washed his feet in the brook.

She tried to heal them with her magic, but healing had never been her strong suit. "Son of a bitch, I wish you could still heal," she said, almost in tears from a frustration that was not solely the result of her failed healing spell. "I am _useless_ at this."

"I can guide you."

She looked at him quizzically.

"I can no longer cast spells, but I remember how to cast them."

And so he talked her through the first spirit healing Hawke had ever performed. With his sometimes inadequate descriptions and inability to see precisely what she was doing, it took until the sun had long since set for them to finish, but he never became frustrated or impatient. As much as it unnerved her, she was also grateful for this.

In the growing gloom of night, it was unwise to travel any further, so they moved along the brook away from the road and struck camp for the night.

They had no food but the two apples in her pockets. They ate the apples, then lay down to sleep. Although they were no longer crammed into a bunk together, the single blanket obliged them once again to rest side by side.

Hawke lay there in the darkness, looking up at the stars, unable to quiet her anxious thoughts. Eventually, she glanced over at the shape beside her. Their faces were close enough that Hawke saw Anders was awake and looking directly into her eyes. She nearly jumped out of her skin.

He did not acknowledge her startlement in any way. "May I ask a question?"

She frowned, completely thrown. "Why wouldn't you?"

"You asked me to remain silent," he responded simply. "I have done so, except when I could only help you by speaking."

She felt guilt creep up her spine and hunched her shoulder defensively.

"Ask away, Anders."

"Why have you taken me from the Circle?"

Of all the... "Because you don't want to be there."

"I do."

"No, you don't."

"You mean that I didn't before I became Tranquil."

"Yes."

"Why are you trying to satisfy desires I no longer have?"

"Because I owe it to the man you once were!"

"The man I was before I became Tranquil caused a lot of pain and death."

Hawke rolled over so that she was facing away from him. "It doesn't matter."

"Pain and death always matter."

"Even to you? Even now?"

"Of course they matter to me. I can still feel pain, Hawke. I can still die."

She shut her eyes against the tears welling in them. Hearing her name on his tongue was like a knife between her ribs, and she was going to bleed out here, under the stars, next to a man with a sunburst brand on his face.

"You wanted to die," she whispered. "You said that being made Tranquil was a fate worth than death."

"I was wrong."

"You were right."

"Then why haven't you killed me?"

She couldn't stop the tears any longer.

"Because I can't. Because I'm weak."

He didn't respond. For a while there was no noise but the sounds of the night and of Hawke crying.

When she had cried herself out, she asked in a hoarse voice, "Anders?"

"Hawke?"

One syllable, and he'd almost broken her nerve.

"Can you wrap your arms around me?"

Strong, familiar arms wrapped around her. She closed her eyes, leaned back into him, and surrendered to the fantasy that they were in Kirkwall and he was Anders. In that state, she fell asleep.

* * *

She awoke to morning wood poking her in the arse, and, still half in a pleasant dream, wriggled happily against it.

"Mmm," she mumbled sleepily, "More of that, please." She directed the hands wrapped around her down to where they would do the most good.

One clever hand was already teasing her into a writhing mass of pleasure when her sleepy mind suddenly remembered where she was and who she was with.

She would have said "Stop," then -- she swore she would have -- but just then the hand crept back up and started playing with her breast. She ground back against him helplessly.

He moaned.

Hawke froze, but the hands on her body kept working relentlessly away.

Maybe she was hearing things.

She lifted his hand from her breast to her mouth and sucked a finger in.

He moaned again.

She let his finger slide out of her mouth.

"Anders?" she whispered.

"Hawke?" came the breathy reply.

_Don't hope. It's not real. It's not him. It's just reflex and memory,_ she told herself.

"Fuck me?" she asked tremulously.

"Good idea," came the reply, and despite the casualness of the words and the breathiness of the tone, she could hear the Tranquility in his voice and knew she was right not to hope. But if she couldn't hope, she could pretend.

She was as bad as the Templars.

She twisted around in the blanket and climbed up onto him, straddling his erection. She settled down onto him, and his hips bucked helplessly. She slid herself up and down his length, breath stuttering ever time the smooth head of his cock pressed into the sensitive spot near the front of her vagina. She brought his hands up to touch her legs and massage the nub of her clit, and began to positively pulsate with pleasure.

She looked adoringly down into his face, and almost ruined it for herself. Because his eyes, of course, were empty of feeling. And above them, the everpresent brand, mocking her.

She had to get rid of that brand, she kept thinking, as she raised and lowered herself over him again and again. The brand had to go.

Mixing sex and magic was never a good idea, despite what some of Isabela's stories might have led a credulous individual to believe. Casting spells required the utmost concentration. The doorway a mage opened to the Fade could be used in both directions, and demons were always eager for the chance to possess mortals. It went without saying that no wise person ever performed magic while riding the edge of an orgasm.

But the category of wise people was mutually exclusive with the category of people who'd ride their dead lover's still-living body like the hounds of Hessarian were after them. As she slammed down on Anders' cock, Hawke reached into the Fade and wove it into the patterns Anders had patiently instructed her in yesterday. Something closely resembling those patterns, at any rate. She thrust her magic at the mark on his head, willing it to heal, and as her cunt clutched around his cock in a wave of pleasure as pure as anything in this world, something not of this world reached through her, into Anders.

She slumped over him, still shivering with the aftershocks, her eyes closed as she wrapped her arms around his chest, holding him tight for one last pretend.

Suddenly Anders grabbed her hips, and thrust his still-erect cock into her three times before coming inside her.

She opened her eyes in surprise, and look straight into solid blue. She blinked, and it was gone.

"Hawke," croaked Anders, and her name sounded different than any time she'd heard it said since that last night in Kirkwall. It sounded desperate and scared and sad and hopeful all at once. Or maybe those were here emotions.

"... _Anders?_ " She pulled back and took his head between her hands, staring down at it as if she could read the future in the wrinkles of his eyelids.

" _Open your eyes,_ " she all but screamed into his face.

He opened his eyes. They were brown and black and white as normal.

But there wasn't anything Tranquil about them at all. They looked wild, almost crazed.

She took a breath, then another. Feeling dizzy, she rested her forehead against his, no longer sure what she was feeling or should be feeling.

His forehead was smooth under hers.

His hands grappled her body, and she was toppled off him, trailing come.

He sat up, clutching at his face with his hands, then at his neck, his chest, his arms, his hair.

"Where am I?" he whispered.

"Here," was the first answer that popped into her head. "Here, with me, on the road somewhere between Starkhaven and Ostwick."

He looked at her so confused that she tried a different tack altogether. "You're not in the Fade. You're on the other side of the Veil."

That was the right thing to say.

"...Justice?"

He looked at her, and his mouth stretched into a shakey grin. "Yes. Justice. Also..." he looked comically dubious for a second, "Anders?"

* * *

After some more passionate kissing, they bathed in the creek, dressed and broke camp.

Before they set off, she asked him, "Anders?"

"Mmyes?" He glanced up at her as he rolled up the blanket.

"Do you have any doubts about being taken from the Circle?"

"Maker, no!" He looked surprised, and then his face curled into a snarl of anger. "What those monsters did..." His voice broke.

He cleared his throat and spoke again, his voice dangerously low. "Thank you, Hawke, for killing two of them."

She could hear what he left unspoken: two was not enough.

"First," she said, "we'll need to raise an army." They could do it. She was the motherfucking Champion of Kirkwall; she would find a way.

Anders was giving her an odd look.

"...What?"

"Hawke," he began, and then trailed off.

"Anders?" she asked, concerned now.

"When you said we'll raise an army," he said, slowly and carefully, "I could swear your eyes were glowing blue."

**Author's Note:**

> Neither beta'ed nor fact checked. Mea culpa.


End file.
